TY - JOUR
T1 - The Paleo-Indian Entry into South America According to Mitogenomes
AU - Brandini, Stefania
AU - Bergamaschi, Paola
AU - Cerna, Marco Fernando
AU - Gandini, Francesca
AU - Bastaroli, Francesca
AU - Bertolini, Emilie
AU - Cereda, Cristina
AU - Ferretti, Luca
AU - Gomez-Carballa, Alberto
AU - Battaglia, Vincenza
AU - Salas, Antonio
AU - Semino, Ornella
AU - Achilli, Alessandro
AU - Olivieri, Anna
AU - Torroni, Antonio
PY - 2018/2/1
Y1 - 2018/2/1
N2 - Recent and compelling archaeological evidence attests to human presence ∼14.5 ka at multiple sites in South America and a very early exploitation of extreme high-altitude Andean environments. Considering that, according to genetic evidence, human entry into North America from Beringia most likely occurred ∼16 ka, these archeological findings would imply an extremely rapid spread along the double continent. To shed light on this issue from a genetic perspective, we first completely sequenced 217 novel modern mitogenomes of Native American ancestry from the northwestern area of South America (Ecuador and Peru); we then evaluated them phylogenetically together with other available mitogenomes (430 samples, both modern and ancient) from the same geographic area and, finally, with all closely related mitogenomes from the entire double continent. We detected a large number (N = 48) of novel subhaplogroups, often branching into further subclades, belonging to two classes: those that arose in South America early after its peopling and those that instead originated in North or Central America and reached South America with the first settlers. Coalescence age estimates for these subhaplogroups provide time boundaries indicating that early Paleo-Indians probably moved from North America to the area corresponding to modern Ecuador and Peru over the short time frame of ∼1.5 ka comprised between 16.0 and 14.6 ka.
AB - Recent and compelling archaeological evidence attests to human presence ∼14.5 ka at multiple sites in South America and a very early exploitation of extreme high-altitude Andean environments. Considering that, according to genetic evidence, human entry into North America from Beringia most likely occurred ∼16 ka, these archeological findings would imply an extremely rapid spread along the double continent. To shed light on this issue from a genetic perspective, we first completely sequenced 217 novel modern mitogenomes of Native American ancestry from the northwestern area of South America (Ecuador and Peru); we then evaluated them phylogenetically together with other available mitogenomes (430 samples, both modern and ancient) from the same geographic area and, finally, with all closely related mitogenomes from the entire double continent. We detected a large number (N = 48) of novel subhaplogroups, often branching into further subclades, belonging to two classes: those that arose in South America early after its peopling and those that instead originated in North or Central America and reached South America with the first settlers. Coalescence age estimates for these subhaplogroups provide time boundaries indicating that early Paleo-Indians probably moved from North America to the area corresponding to modern Ecuador and Peru over the short time frame of ∼1.5 ka comprised between 16.0 and 14.6 ka.
KW - Native Americans
KW - Mitochondrial DNA
KW - Mitochondrial genomes
KW - Haplogroups
KW - first peopling of South America
KW - Ecuador
KW - Peru
U2 - 10.1093/molbev/msx267
DO - 10.1093/molbev/msx267
M3 - Article
VL - 35
SP - 299
EP - 311
JO - Molecular Biology and Evolution
JF - Molecular Biology and Evolution
SN - 0737-4038
IS - 2
ER -